Bolero

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was born in 1875 in the Basque region of France. His birth in the Basque Country, located in northern Spain and south-west France, may well have motivated Ravel to compose works inspired by Spain as Rapsodie espagnole, L’Heure espagnole, Pavane pour une infante éfunte.... The ballet work Boléro, based on the Spanish dance form of the same name, was composed in 1928 at the request of the ballet dancer Ida Rubinstein.

The work features various orchestral instruments playing the melody, which eventually builds to a tutti (all players playing together) and concludes in a splendid manner. It is said that the dance to this piece tells the story of a solo dancer performing in a Seville tavern, who, as the mood builds, is joined by others around her.

Various arrangements (versions) of this work exist, including one by Ravel himself for piano for four hands. It is an intriguing arrangement that builds up the piece using layered sounds and varied playing techniques on a single instrument.
The tempo specified for this work is ?=72, though it is also said that Ravel preferred ?=66. Indeed, a score once owned by Ravel survives, bearing the notation 72 crossed out with a slash and replaced with 66. On the guitar, a slightly slower tempo than this might be preferable. This work was originally intended to be titled Fandango.

I arranged it to utilise various guitar techniques and tonal variations. I would be grateful if you could play in such a way　that a variety of sounds can be heard from a single guitar.

KEIGO FUJII

Keigo Fujii was born in 1956 in Kamiiso Town, Hokkaido.

He studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London and the Óscar Esplà Conservatory in Alicante, Spain.

In 1985, he won first prize consecutively at the Ramirez International Guitar Competition and the Orense International Guitar Competition. He also has been a prizewinner at the Maria Canals International Guitar Competition and the Giuliani International Guitar Competition.

Keigo Fujii studied guitar with Ichirō Okamoto, José Luis González, and David Russell, and studied composition with Carey Blyton.

He was recommended for the final concert in Alirio Diaz’s masterclass. In 2017, he was invited from Spain to teach at a graduate school, and has been invited to perform in concerts and serve as a competition judge overseas.

He has composed numerous works, but his solo guitar piece The Legend of Hagoromo (1992) in particular has been recorded on over ten CDs worldwide. He focuses his activities on performing duets with his wife, the pianist Yumi Fujii.

In 1996, he was awarded the “Aoyama Music Prize” by the Aoyama Music Foundation. He served as a lecturer at Horikawa Music High School of Kyoto City, and served as a specially appointed professor in the Guitar and Mandolin Course at Osaka College of Music.